


Middle Cyclone

by bashert



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:43:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bashert/pseuds/bashert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were at least four times in the first three weeks that Mac considered, seriously considered, quitting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Middle Cyclone

**Author's Note:**

> I was feeling angsty, and listening to Neko Case did not help. So the title is from Neko Case, and I'm going to go watch the season 2 finale and try to remind myself that these two idiots worked things out.

_I can't give up acting tough  
It's all that I'm made of  
Can't scrape together quite enough  
To ride the bus to the outskirts of the fact that I need love  
_  
 _It was so clear to me_  
 _That it was almost invisible_  
 _I lie across the path waiting_  
 _Just for a chance to be_  
 _A spider web trapped in your lashes_  
 _For that, I would trade you my empire for ashes_  
 _But I choke it back, how much I need lov_ e- Neko Case

* * *

There were at least four times in the first three weeks that Mac considered, _seriously_ considered, quitting.  
  
She couldn't really handle the looks that Will kept shooting her, the malice and bitterness that was pointed her way. That was the reason that she ran as fast and far as her legs could carry her away from New York, away from him, in the aftermath of her confession.  
  
 _"I slept with Brian, and I'm so sorry."_  
  
He hadn't wanted to hear her explanation. He hadn't given her the chance to lay out what had happened, how it had happened. He had simply rose to his feet, wiped his hands on his pant legs, and told her in a low, angry voice to get the fuck out.  
  
She knew that she had handled that all wrong, handled the confession all wrong. She shouldn't have put it like that, like it had just happened in the hours, or days, or even months before. It hadn't happened since the first four months that she and Will were together, and they hadn't even been serious at that point.  
  
Well, _she_ hadn't been serious at that point. She had still been heartbroken, still trying to hang onto Brian with both hands and every manipulative way she could think of. When Will, handsome, famous, wealthy Will had asked her on a date she had jumped at the chance. Partly because he was handsome, famous, and wealthy, but partly (okay, _mostly_ ) because she thought it would drive Brian crazy.  
  
And it had, hadn't it? Brian had called her only days after her second date with Will, and she had tumbled right from Will's arms into Brian's bed. At the time she had reasoned that it wasn't cheating, not really, because she and Will weren't exclusively dating. And the longer it went on, the more she fell for Will and found that she didn't really _like_ Brian all that much (although she did love him. She _did_ at the time. Not like Will, but it was love. She knew that Will wouldn't want to hear that part either, but just because he didn't want to hear it didn't make it any less true).  
  
Mac confessed because she felt like she had to. They were getting serious, _really_ serious, so serious that she thought that a ring might be coming, and she had never been in a relationship like that before. She thought it was the right thing to do, and she never expected him to react like he did. After all, they had only been on a few dates when Brian first showed back up, and she broke it off with Brian as soon as she realized things were serious with Will.  
  
When Will told her to get out, she got out. One of her regrets (which were varied and many) was that she didn't fight harder. On that awful night, she sat outside of his apartment door, her back against the cool wood, and sobbed into her hands for what felt like hours before she realized that he wasn't coming to find her. She had stood on shaky legs and somehow managed to get herself home where she dialed the number of an old friend who owed her a favor and got herself on the first plane the hell out of New York the next morning.  
  
One particularly oppressively hot night somewhere in Pakistan, when the heat and the noise and the fear kept everyone awake, Jim had asked her what had made her give up her cushy gig in New York, and she had at first shrugged off the question.  
  
 _"Who wouldn't leave that for all of this?"_ She had swept out her arms and given him a crooked smile. But Jim followed her out there, and would walk through fire for her, had almost walked through fire for her, so she owed him a real answer.  
  
 _"It's a cliché, really_ ," she admitted. _"A broken heart."_ And the whole sad, sordid story came spilling out. She told Jim about Will, and about Brian, about how stupid she was and how if she could do it all again she would do everything differently.  
  
A religious protest that got out of hand and a knife weren't enough to make her go home, but a failed psych eval was, and she caught the relief that ghosted across Jim's face when she announced they were heading home. Despite the many favors she tried to cash in once they were back stateside, word seemed to have gotten out that Mackenzie McHale was unstable and un-hirable. She was down to two options, neither of which were very appealing to her. She could call Charlie Skinner at ACN (which would mean Will, and despite having survived a stabbing and months embedded, she doesn't know if she's tough enough to survive seeing him again) or she could pack up and move back to London and take the job at BBC that her mother's been trying to get her to take for years (that would mean having her father pull some strings, because she was sure she was just as much as a liability across the pond, and she hated the idea of that).  
  
In the end she called Charlie, and he hired her immediately, and pointed her in the direction of Northwestern where Will was sitting on a panel. Mac went because it seemed easier to see him for the first time in years without _him_ seeing _her_ , and she couldn't help herself from producing, scribbling the words on a blank piece of paper and holding it up so that he could see. She half feared he might storm up into the crowd when he spotted her, but he hadn't. Instead he had ranted and ended up on YouTube, and she felt more than a little responsible for pushing him in that direction in the first place with her stupid sign reading, _"It's not. But it can be."_  
  
Nothing could have prepared Mac for the look on Will's face when he saw her standing in the empty newsroom. Jim had looked like he was about to step in between the two of them if it came down to that, so she knew that she wasn't the only one that could read the anger and hatred seeping out of Will's every pore.  
  
That night, the night of the BP spill and their first broadcast, there were moments that she thought that this could work. There were even moments where she caught Will looking at her in a way that made hope flare up dangerously inside of her, but then he would go back to glowering and reminded herself that he wanted to fire her as soon as he possibly could. That no amount of time and space could lessen her betrayal for him.  
  
The first few weeks weren't all bad. They began to build a staff that she could see had great potential. She hired Sloan Sabbith, and she could see the show shaping into something really wonderful.  
  
But for every great moment, there were ones where she thought she should have called her father and taken the job at BBC. Sending out the email confessing that she was the one to cheat on Will was not one of her prouder moments. She seriously considered packing it all in at that moment, telling Charlie she gave it her best try, and hightailing it out of there, but pride and stubbornness kept her there.  
  
Mac was never one to back down from a challenge, with the glaring exception of not staying and fighting for her relationship with Will. It was uncharacteristic, actually, and she blamed being stunned and brokenhearted for her cowardly retreat.  
  
But if she was really honest with herself (and the truth, unfortunately, was that she was very rarely _completely_ honest with herself) she stayed not out of pride or stubbornness, but because she couldn't bring herself to flee from Will McAvoy's side twice.  
  
And because she _deserved_ it. His glaring and stomping and treating her like dirt was well deserved. If that was her punishment, she needed to just take it. She brutally hurt him; one of a long line to disappoint and betray Will. Sometimes she would still catch the confusion and hurt under the constant simmering anger and it would break her heart, because she did that. She put that lost little boy look there, and she was not sure there was anything she could ever do to make it up to him.

So Mac stayed, and she put up with his mercurial moods and his snide jabs and tried to take it all in stride, even when it was slowly breaking her.

* * *

 

It’s worth it, for the most part. When they start to come together, it’s so seamless that it’s like it was always like that. Like she’s known and worked with these people for years (although that’s true of Will and of Jim, but those years didn’t overlap and sometimes she forgets that the two of them don’t really know _each other_ when she knows both of them so well).

And slowly, Will starts to thaw towards her. She’s not sure if she’s wearing him down, or if he’s being caught up in the excitement of what they’re doing, but either way she’s grateful.

It’s on a Thursday, early in December, when he knocks lightly on her office door after the show. She’s trying to get things done so that she doesn’t have to come in over the weekend. Wade wants the two of them to go away that weekend, and she’s not sure if she’s ready for that, but she’s trying to move on (she’s trying so hard). Will might be a little kinder to her than he was back in May, but being marginally kinder is worlds away from forgiving her. It became clear somewhere along the way that despite the small hope she’s been unintentionally fostering for a romantic reunion with Will, that’s just not going to happen. And if it’s not going to happen, she needs to acknowledge that and try to get on with her life. Enter Wade. She’s not fooling anyone, she’s not in love with him, but he’s nice enough and handsome enough and he’s not Will, but no one can be.

“I wasn’t sure if you were still here,” Will says, and she shrugs, because she’s not sure if she wants to shove her romantic getaway with Wade in his face. “Can we talk for a moment?”

“Sure,” she gestures to the chairs in front of her desk and he drops heavily into one, tugging at his tie.

“It was a good show tonight,” he says finally, after a moment where Mac’s not sure if he’s going to say anything at all. “It’s _been_ a really good show lately, and you’re a large part of why.”

It’s by far the nicest thing he’s said to her in a long time, and she feels traitorous tears prick at her eyes. This is what their relationship has come to, he throws scraps of affection to her and she laps them up desperately.

She clears her throat roughly, betraying the fact that she’s _thisclose_ to crying, and says, “Thank you, Will. I think it’s a team effort, though.” He nods a couple of times, and then heaves himself to his feet.

“I just wanted to tell you that your work has not gone unappreciated or unnoticed, and I know I told you at the beginning that I was going to let an appropriate amount of time to pass and then, you know,” he waves his hand, and Mac surprises both of them when she bluntly fills in,

“Fire me.” And he looks pained for a moment and then nods.

“Yeah, well, I’m not…that’s not even…that’s off the table,” he finally spits out. And she’s suspected for a while now that her job was safe, but it’s still something of a relief to hear him say it, and she gives him a tremulous smile.

“Well, good, because I rather like what we’re doing here,” she tells him.

“Yeah, me too,” he admits. “Anyway, I should let you get back to work. I’ll see you in the morning? Try not to stay too late, okay?” And with that he sweeps back out of her office and she hesitates for a moment before dialing Wade’s number.

“Wade? It’s Mac, I’m so sorry, but something’s come up and I just don’t think I can get away this weekend.” She swallows hard, but can’t help the smile that tugs at the corners of her mouth. She’s glutton for punishment, she knows. Hope is such a dangerous thing.


End file.
